American football player (1923?1971)
American football player
Bob Wiese
![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2e/Bob_Wiese.jpg/220px-Bob_Wiese.jpg) |
|
Position:
| Fullback
,
quarterback
|
---|
|
Born:
| (
1923-01-25
)
January 25, 1923
Jamestown, North Dakota
, U.S.
|
---|
Died:
| November 19, 1971
(1971-11-19)
(aged 48)
Lake County, Ohio
, U.S.
|
---|
Height:
| 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)
|
---|
Weight:
| 198 lb (90 kg)
|
---|
|
High school:
| Jamestown
(Jamestown, North Dakota)
|
---|
College:
| Michigan
(1942?1944, 1946)
|
---|
NFL draft:
| 1945
/ Round: 5 / Pick: 39
|
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|
|
|
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|
|
|
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|
Games:
| 16
|
---|
Games started:
| 3
|
---|
Rushing yards:
| 61
|
---|
Average:
| 3.1
|
---|
Receptions:
| 5
|
---|
Receiving yards:
| 53
|
---|
|
|
Robert Lee Wiese
(January 25, 1923 ? November 19, 1971) was an
American football
player. He played
college football
for
Fritz Crisler
's
University of Michigan
Wolverines football
teams in 1942, 1943, 1944 and 1946?missing the 1945 season due to military service. He also played professional football for the
Detroit Lions
in 1947 and 1948.
[1]
Biography
[
edit
]
Wiese was born in
Jamestown, North Dakota
, in 1923. He enrolled at the University of Michigan where he joined the football team coached by Fritz Crisler in 1942.
[2]
In his first year with the team, he started eight games at the fullback position. and was given Meyer Morton Award as the player who showed the greatest development and promise during spring practice.
[2]
In 1943, Crisler asked Wiese to assume the
quarterback
position, and Wiese started five games at the new position as well as three games at his customary
fullback
position.
[3]
Wiese was a key player in a Michigan offense that scored 302 points
[3]
?more points than a Michigan team had scored in 25 years (including the
Tom Harmon
years). The
1943 Michigan Wolverines football team
finished the season with an 8?1 record, outscored its opponents 302 to 73, tied with Purdue for the
Big Ten Conference
championship, and was ranked No. 3 in the final
Associated Press
poll.
[3]
On a team that included stars and Hall of Famers (including
Elroy Hirsch
and
Bill Daley
), Wiese was given the award as the team's Most Valuable Player.
[3]
His teammates also chose him to serve as captain of the
1944 Michigan team
.
As captain of the 1944 team, Wiese returned to the fullback position, with
Joseph Ponsetto
taking over as quarterback. Wiese led the team to a 6?1 record in the first seven games of the season, including victories over Big Ten foes
Minnesota
(28?13),
Northwestern
(27?0), and
Purdue
(40?14). However, Wiese was called into active military service on November 1, 1944, and missed the final three games of the season.
[4]
After being discharged from the military, Wiese was granted a fourth year of eligibility and returned to the Michigan football team in 1946. Wiese was the starting fullback in six of Michigan's games in the
1946 season
.
[5]
He completed bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering, was inducted into
Tau Beta Pi
, and went on to play for the
Detroit Lions
in the 1947 and 1948 football seasons.
[1]
In his later years, Wiese worked as a managing engineer for North American Rockwell Co. (Molded Fiberglass Division) in
Ashtabula, Ohio
. He married Barbara Ann Piper, a Michigan graduate who he met for the first time in wartime Philippines, and they had four children. He died in a plane crash in November 1971. Wiese and two other Rockwell executives had chartered a twin-engine plane to take them to Detroit for a company meeting and attend the Michigan/Ohio football game. The plane crashed in a field in
Lake County, Ohio
, killing the three Rockwell executives and the pilot.
[6]
The Robert L Wiese scholarship is established in his name in the Athletics Department at the University of Michigan.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
"Bob Wiese profile"
. pro-football-reference.com
. Retrieved
January 1,
2010
.
- ^
a
b
"1942 Football Team"
. University of Michigan, Bentley Historical Library. Archived from
the original
on September 26, 2012
. Retrieved
January 1,
2010
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
"1943 Football Team"
. University of Michigan, Bentley Historical Library
. Retrieved
January 1,
2010
.
- ^
"1944 Football Team"
. University of Michigan, Bentley Historical Library
. Retrieved
January 1,
2010
.
- ^
"1946 Football Team"
. University of Michigan, Bentley Historical Library
. Retrieved
January 1,
2010
.
- ^
"3 Executives Killed in Plane Crash in Ohio"
.
Chicago Tribune
. November 19, 1971
. Retrieved
July 13,
2020
.
External links
[
edit
]